


Falling in Retrograde

by bedfordfalls



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, One Night Stands, Past Relationship(s), Suicidal Thoughts, i am so sorry this got so ooc, i fuckign, rest in fucking pieces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:11:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5135894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedfordfalls/pseuds/bedfordfalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Four people Ryan Ross met who looked a little too familiar</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling in Retrograde

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monere/gifts).



> title taken from the song Fountain Stairs  
> 

The first one, Ryan found against the wall of the alley next to the club, and his breath caught for a few seconds at the sight. The boy was just slightly too tall, but thin and lean, with dark hair and a cigarette tauntingly dangling from his lips unlit. He raised a hand to his mouth and removed it long enough to look at Ryan through thick lashes.

He asked for a light and before Ryan knew what he was doing, he was digging through his pockets to find a lighter, and holding it out as the boy leaned forward to touch his smoke to the flame.

Ryan's vision was blurring slightly, and the boy was quiet and shy, so few overused pick-up lines even needed to be tossed around before Ryan found himself in the stairwell of his apartment complex with his back arched against the railing as they kissed. They stumbled up the steps, the stranger clearly the more sober between them, and reached the landing breathless.

By the time they were at his room, Ryan was so drunk on tequila and adrenaline that it wasn't hard to imagine the boy a slight bit shorter, voice a little lower, and he forced the memories with his hips until the boy stilled under him with a soft cry.

  

When Ryan woke the next morning, his bed was empty and forty dollars was missing from his dresser. It was a small price to pay.

 

****

 

The second was against him in some club downtown, hands in Ryan's hair and across his chest and Ryan could see tattoos across his dark skin. Too many, he thought, but nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect.

The tattoos weren't even in his mind by the time the boy was dragging him into a bathroom in the back and speaking to him in a honey soaked voice until Ryan was so breathless he almost wasn't sure who he reminded him of. The boy kissed Ryan, who kissed back with long fingers tangled in dark hair, and then Ryan was falling to his knees against the shadowed wall, and the sounds of the club faded to static in the background.

He let the boy thread hands in his hair, savouring the pain he felt with every tug.

_(A reminder of blunted nails on his skin, in that shitty Dallas hotel.)_

When the boy came, Ryan swallowed around him, holding his hips to guide him through until he stopped shaking. Ryan pulled off and stood, brushing sweat-dampened hair from his eyes. The boy motioned as if to return the favour, but Ryan shook his head.

"Don't bother."

The boy broke into a soft smile, not the same one burned into Ryan's mind and lips, but almost comforting nevertheless. 

"Suit yourself."

He started to walk away, before turning back to wink at Ryan.

"Don't tell my girlfriend."

In the dim fluorescent glow, his tattoos almost came alive.

 

When Ryan finished washing his hands and returned to the club, the boy was nowhere to be seen.

 

****

 

The third was silent and observant as he slid up to Ryan at the back of somewhere that barely qualified as a bar. He was too short by just a couple inches, but his hair framed his face, dusting his cheekbones, and his eyes were warm and liquid as he watched Ryan for several seconds.

"Buy you a drink, love?"

Ryan was drunk already, at least he had drunk enough that he didn't trust himself to stand up without stumbling, but it didn't really matter.

He nodded, mouth dry as he answered, "Tequila. Or anything, really."

The boy responded with something Ryan barely heard over his own thoughts. His voice was wrong, not smooth and sweet, so as Ryan downed the drink pushed at him, he tried to instead focus on the boy's hair, his not-quite-olive skin, the way his lips drew up when he smiled.

Those lips. Almost right.

_(Almost the same.)_

Two drinks later, and Ryan's hands were sliding across the stranger's thighs, fingertips brushing denim as he uttered what was becoming his go-to phrase lately.

"Let's get out of here."

 

 

By the time the taxi stopped outside his apartment, Ryan was practically a step away from fucking the boy against the outside wall, but instead he steered them both to his apartment, struggling for a second to see where to put the key in the midst of an alcohol haze (punctuated only by the gasps of the boy as Ryan's lips grazed his collarbone, bit down on his neck).

He made it to his room, pressing them both against the bed and sliding the boy's pants down his toned thighs, only slightly different from what Ryan remembered. He wrapped a hand around the boy's throat after tossing the bottle of lube he had been using behind them and pushing in, shoving two fingers in the boy's mouth as he did so. Saliva trailed across the boy's full lips, and he didn't seem to mind.

Ryan told himself afterwards that he had done it because it turned him on, but that wasn't really why. He couldn't convince himself that it wasn't to muffle the boy's voice that sounded so wrong.

Ryan pulled out after he came, head swimming as he breathed heavily. The boy whimpered slightly under him, and Ryan reached over, murmuring something of a praise as he stroked the boy until he came, over his own chest and down Ryan's hand.

After a moment, the boy stood, grabbing a tissue from the nightstand to wipe himself off before pulling on his pants.

_(Light wash, skinny jeans, Ryan noted. They should have been darker.)_

"You can stay the night, you know." Ryan said lightly, "I'm not that much of an asshole."

He was, but still.

"I gotta get going." The boy's voice seemed tense, filled with something akin to regret. Ryan caught a flash of gold against the boy's skin, a cross pendant resting against the hollow of his throat. How had he not noticed it before?

The boy seemed to hesitate for a moment before scrawling something on a scrap of paper and tossing it on the bed. A name and number, Ryan guessed. He didn't want to know the boy's name.

"Call me, okay?"

Ryan didn't.

 

****

 

He hadn't slept at all that night, lying awake for hours as he tried to turn off his thoughts but also, simultaneously, tried to understand — really understand — why he couldn't let this go. The notches in his proverbial bedpost belonged to features, not names.

One for long, dark lashes. One for silky hair under his fingers. One for lips, for tattoos, for the familiar voice moaning in his ear.

He couldn't even recall the faces of the last few, really, just those features, dark skin and eyes the colour of the whiskey Ryan was pretty sure he could feel running through his veins.

He grabbed a notepad and scribbled the date and time before closing his eyes. The therapist he had seen told him to do this, to spill his thoughts and memories onto paper rather than pouring them out onto his skin or drowning them slowly in liquor and bile.

_(A scar for every word they ever exchanged, a drink for every dream they ever shared.)_

He had stopped going to therapy after four sessions.

 

Ryan fell asleep around three, after crying and cursing and filling page after page with love confessions, death wishes, _fuck you fuck you fuck you_ scrawled from top to bottom.

When he woke up, it was nearly two pm and there was ink smudged across his cheek from falling asleep on a list of places he couldn't get out of his mind.

Africa was beautiful this time of year.

 

****

 

Ryan was as wasted as he had been in as long as he could remember. He could barely see without his vision doubling, and his hands trembled as he clutched his glass. The place he had ended up in was hot, too hot, filled with dance music and the smell of cologne Ryan hadn't worn in years. Not since he was young and alive, before he had cut off his hair and burned his old clothes.

Back when he was smiling, glowing, without the dark circles and bloodshot eyes that had become his trademark.

Back when he was untouchable. Immortal.

 

He reached for his drink — how did he get it? He didn't remember ordering it. Someone was sitting by him now, not making eye contact. At least, Ryan didn't think he was making eye contact. It was kind of hard to tell.

The bartender asked if he wanted another and Ryan heard him slur out a "sure, yeah" soft and high.

Molasses dripped down Ryan's face and neck in the form of an echoing sound wave, and then a hand was against Ryan's leg, his chest, his hip, and everything was melting into a blurry heat.

 

 

Ryan couldn't remember how they got home, or how they got to his room, or even how to tell which sweat-slicked expanse of skin belonged to him. They were against the duvet on his bed, Ryan grasping at the covers and brushing away pages of his three am past to make room for the present. Neither of them spoke, but Ryan's lips were against the boy's, and the tongue in his mouth didn't feel like his, but there was no way to tell at this point.

Ryan couldn't recall when either of them had undressed, but his boxers were off and he was forcing his fingers into the boy's mouth long enough to coat them with saliva before they were inside the boy, opening him in preparation.

And then Ryan was shoving in and everything was going pale around him. He closed his eyes and watched the lights dance in the darkness, only to open them abruptly at the feeling of blunt nails scraping his skin, so hard he was certain he bled.

It was pure muscle memory, Ryan's fingers leaving dark bruises on the boy's hips as he gripped harder with every thrust.

The room was spinning again; Ryan couldn't remember anything of the night that wasn't the sound of skin on skin, couldn't remember who he was with or what back alley bar they had met at, but he could feel himself getting closer to coming, breaths sliding into moans.

Ryan moved one hand to bridge the gap between them, grasping almost blindly to jerk off the boy below, who had become just a blur of tan and brown and streaks of red where Ryan's nails had raked down his sides. He was gasping now, forcing his hips up as Ryan thrust into him.

Ryan came first with a stuttered cry. He could have sworn he nearly blacked out for a moment as his body went numb, and as he twisted his hand down one more time, the other boy came hard across both of their stomachs with a loud moan.

Ryan heard it, heard the noise as if it was inside his head, and that was it.

Even with his vision swimming as he pulled out and collapsed on the bed, it remained, that moan echoing in the silence of the room.

Neither of them moved to clean themselves up. The only sound that could be heard was laboured breaths and the blood rushing in Ryan's ears. If he moved, he thought, he was certain to throw up, and it wasn't even due to the alcohol still coursing through him.

Everything felt too heavy and suddenly, Ryan was too tired to even move. His last thought before his eyes closed was that _oh God_ , he hoped he'd wake up alone.

 

****

 

When Ryan opened his eyes, his mouth was burning and his head was in more pain than he could describe. He winced as he sat up, glancing down at himself and taking in the hazy events of the previous night.

That voice, God.

It was still in his ears and Christ, bile was rising to his throat as he stumbled out of bed into the bathroom, gagging until it felt like he had nothing left to vomit. He let his head fall back, feeling spikes of pain through his whole body.

For several seconds, he ignored the tears welling in his eyes, but once they started to spill, he couldn't stop them. What the fuck was wrong with him to have let this happen? How could he not have realised?

But even as he asked himself, Ryan knew he had realised from the moment he glanced over at the bar. He had known the cologne, the syrup drenched voice, the nails tracing along the same paths they always had.

The revelation felt like Ryan's heart was shattering all over again.

It wasn't the familiar, dry anger that Ryan had become accustomed to, it was wet, messy regret that was suffocating him on a tiled bathroom floor in an apartment he was never meant to own. One night, he thought to himself, almost in awe. One night and everything was wrong again.

_(Was it ever right?)_

 

He was torn between getting up and just staying on the floor indefinitely. Getting up involved confronting the question of whether he was alone, and the thought terrified him. This whole situation was retribution, clearly, for whatever he had done to drive them apart.

Ryan didn't even look up as he heard footsteps.

"Hey."

As a mug of coffee was placed on the floor, Ryan caught a glimpse of tropical colours against familiar monochrome keys.

"I—I made coffee."

Ryan still didn't look up, couldn't look up. He couldn't figure out how to speak for what seemed like ages, and when he finally did, the words came out a whisper.

"Thanks."

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Ryan was supposed to drink away his pain, hold a lighter to his skin until he stopped hearing that same voice, live in this apartment until he stepped off a ledge (or until his liver failed. Whichever came first.) But this? It wasn't right. The emotions he had carefully tried to excise were filling his lungs, and he was going to regret the previous night for the rest of his life, he thought, at least until he heard the next words spoken.

"I'm sorry." He was sliding next to Ryan. "Not just—not last night. I mean for everything."

And God, Ryan had been waiting so long to hear those words. He looked up, sucking in air like he was drowning. They were both crying, drops clinging to the lashes of the soft brown eyes that had followed Ryan all this time, but the tears streaking Ryan's cheeks were ones of relief now.

Underneath the shaved sides and slight stubble, he was the same.

Nothing had changed.

_(Everything had changed.)_

Ryan breathed in.

"I'm sorry too, Brendon."

Brendon whispered something about fate, and Ryan smiled slightly as he reached for the coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> this was written over a span of several sleep-deprived classes and not really beta'd so i'm really sorry for any mistakes


End file.
